


don't wake me up from this sweet little dream

by hellotomie



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel), New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/M, M/M, but harumaki doesn't actually show up, ddlc typical violence, hint of harukawa/momota, i tagged the ships anyway jic, no one gets together officially, none of the ships actually sail here, shuichi is too sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 06:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15237660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellotomie/pseuds/hellotomie
Summary: The player controls Shuichi Saihara, a cute new guy going into the Literature Club!





	don't wake me up from this sweet little dream

**Author's Note:**

> A DDLC AU of New Dangan Ronpa V3 where Shuichi is the player character. Relating Kokichi, Kaede, Kaito, and Kiibo to Monika, Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri would only go so far as to have them in similar death scenes. Otherwise, there's no clear-cut way to strictly associate anyone with a DDLC character, except perhaps for one NDRV3 character.

* * *

 

Shuichi has already understood that something was wrong, but he knew he couldn’t voice his discomfort out loud. If he tried, the world would glitch, and he’d glitch, and it was similar to the feeling of having your brain crawl all over itself within your skull. It left him reeling.

It was true, then, that his actions weren’t his to control. Something else dictated his every move. At first, his own thoughts were being dictated as well, something akin to brainwashing. But now that he knew something was inherently _off_ , all that was left of his mind was something like a nudging itch, trying to make him _feel_ whatever he was _supposed_ to feel. For instance, he could be eating a homemade spring roll that Kaito made for him, and the nudging itch would tell him, ‘ _the warm taste is delicious and makes my tongue sing!_ ’ but his real thoughts would just repeatedly say, ‘ _Kaede Akamatsu is dead._ ’

Whatever the nudging itch says to him, his body responds. He’d smile up at Kaito and tell him that the spring roll was good, even though he was a confused, teary mess on the inside, only thinking of taut rope and bare feet toeing the keys of a piano’s keyboard.

He remembered how tears had suddenly escaped from his eyes when he’d seen her room. His mouth had opened, but the scream never came out, because the world stuttered right before his eyes, and suddenly, he was on the sunny road, walking to school. Kaede had bounced up to him like she usually did every morning, but she was a mass of glitching pixels, indecipherable and voiceless.

Then the world had stuttered again, and Shuichi Saihara had no childhood friend to speak of.

His sadness didn’t entwine well with his confusion. It was a throbbing headache and a heart being crushed in his ribcage. He continued his day, joining the literature club once Kokichi invited him, but his mind was independent of his body. His legs should have been shaking.

His actions were not his own. Shuichi Saihara felt trapped.

Perhaps it had been better, back when he was brainwashed into thinking that the nudging itch told him his real thoughts.

* * *

 

With Kaede gone, Kokichi and Kaito fought more often. Shuichi felt as though he ought to stay with them, just to try and quell the fights, but he became frustrated upon realizing that his character was meant to be a lot more passive than he thought he was. Had he always been this neutrally inconsiderate, even while Kaede was still around? Kaede, whose feelings he’d failed to take into account—Kaede, who cared for him more than he did for himself….did his submissiveness to his own self-degradation play a part in her death?

He wasn’t allowed to mull over this any more than his character was, because he was always walking away from Kokichi and Kaito’s fights, despite every fiber of him wanting to run back and solve their argument for them.

Kiibo was almost always with him whenever they escaped the fighting in the clubroom. Sometimes, he’d go along with Shuichi to wherever else they could spend the time until all the other clubs started going home.

Kiibo was originally meeker around Kokichi’s insults and teasing, but lately, he started speaking out a bit more, wilting a lot less, and Shuichi figured it was from the motivational conversations he’d have with Kiibo whenever they spent time together on the school courtyard’s benches.

Eventually, despite the fact that Kaede’s absence meant more arguments, Shuichi saw Kaito make an attempt to at least try to quell things, even just for a little bit. There was visible, hesitant effort in Kaito offering Kokichi one of his famed spring rolls. Kaede had once mentioned how the spring rolls used to be ‘poisonous’ (as Kokichi said) during its early days of development, but that Kaito was steadily improving lately, with the help of a girl he liked from culinary class. The literature club always got a firsthand taste of every new batch. Perhaps the spring rolls was the club’s unifying force, because there was no one there who disliked them.

The poems should’ve been what the spring rolls were, but they weren’t.

Today, they were sharing poems again. Kaito burst out in cold sweat and quivering yells as he threw a crumpled piece of paper in Kokichi’s sniggering face. Shuichi, dazed, could only let his eyes wander towards the tray that once held the day’s batch of spring rolls, remembering how it used to hold five instead of four. The screaming became background noise.

Kiibo suddenly stood up and retorted, trying to tell the two to get a grip, and it was the most outward kind of boldness Shuichi had ever seen him do, inciting a swell of pride within Shuichi’s chest. Unfortunately, Kiibo wasn’t Kaede, and his intervention only made things worse. Kokichi sneered at him, and after that, every word that came out of Kokichi’s mouth was spelled with poison. Shuichi was surprised, since he hadn’t seen Kokichi act so venomously before—jeers becoming unwarranted bullets hitting Kiibo through the chinks of his armor. It wasn’t long before Kiibo was reduced to his shrinking state once more, barely even able to come up with any more good comebacks.

Kaito tried stepping in, but he couldn’t do much, and Kiibo’s eyes looked like they were spacing in and out in disorientation. Shuichi knew that Kiibo couldn’t physically cry, and that it hurt whenever he wanted to. Shuichi could relate so much, because hearing that about Kiibo made Shuichi remember just how his screams for Kaede remained silently caged inside his chest.

So Shuichi decided that Kiibo didn’t have to be the one suffering alone. He noticed how quiet his own character had been, how still his limbs were, how his nudging itch seemed to have receded completely into the back of his mind. Without the itch, perhaps he could finally do something of his own accord.

Shuichi forced himself to open his mouth and speak, forced his body to move forward. It was like moving underwater. Nothing came out of his lips except for garbled speech, but it worked in getting everyone’s attention. Kaito looked at Shuichi in absolute bewilderment. Then, for a split second—Shuichi would’ve missed it if he blinked—Kaito was in shambles, all misshapen limbs and faces rearranged like incompatible puzzle pieces squeezed together, and then he was back to normal, still looking at Shuichi like _he_ was the one who temporarily transformed into a computer glitch.

Kiibo’s voice called Shuichi’s name, and eyes turned to him, only for Shuichi to hear what sounded like metal snapping and breaking, and it was strangely sickening, because then, the scene held Kiibo’s body in bloodless pieces on the floor. Kiibo’s mouth was stretched uncannily in an empty grin and his eyes were in bleeding, black warbles.

Shuichi might have once dreamed of a childishly drawn stick figure of Kaede smiling like that while hanging from her noose.

He opened his mouth to scream, but the world didn’t let him.

* * *

 

Kaito hated the occult. That must have been why he’d exploded after reading Kokichi’s poem, which, as it turned out, was about a ghost wearing a clown mask.

It was only about a ghost wearing a clown mask because Shuichi knew that the poem had originally been about a horse—that was the poem’s topic when Kaede was still around. But the single line that said so in the poem was changed mysteriously after Kaede vanished, so the subject became the ghost.

Shuichi saw the uneven formatting in Kokichi’s poem. Saw ‘Delete Him’ at the bottom. Saw Kokichi sway a bit in front of him, like his body was made out of sliding paper stacks instead of flesh and bone, saw Kokichi’s straight-lipped face transition into his cheeky, insincere smile. Shuichi knew that there was something _inherently wrong_ happening, but he couldn’t talk. His nudging itch talked for him, brushed off everything for him.

“Will you help me?” Kokichi suddenly asked.

Shuichi figured Kokichi wasn’t talking to him. Kokichi was talking to whoever controlled Shuichi’s limbs, made his decisions.

Kokichi knew. He knew there was something wrong.

 _‘Yes_ , _’_ a voice replied to Kokichi. It wasn’t Shuichi’s, but it came from him.

Kokichi stared straight through Shuichi for a while, still wearing his blank face. Then his features suddenly morphed and his eyes were bloodshot and drowning in black rings, and his mouth was a gaping, curved hole of a horrid smile on a dark mask.

“You’re lying.”

The world stuttered, and then Shuichi was sitting in front of Kiibo. Kaito and Kokichi were in the corner, sharing their own poems. Though it looked more like Kokichi was just playing around with Kaito and not actually doing any poem-sharing. Kokichi was faced away, so Shuichi couldn’t see his face, even as Kokichi laughed and Kaito growled. It was like they were back to their old ways, before Kiibo fell to pieces in front of Shuichi, before Kaede.

The same feeling of his brain crawling all over itself came over Shuichi, but his character ignored it as he went on to read the piece of paper in his hands.

* * *

 

Shuichi knew that Kaito liked to read books about stars, just like how Shuichi liked to read books about mystery. Shuichi liked the shine in Kaito’s eyes whenever he talked about his favorite stories, as well as his dream of going to space someday. His presence was warm on Shuichi’s side whenever they huddled in the corner of the room to read one of Kaito’s books together. His voice carried words that always knew how to soothe Shuichi, and Shuichi didn’t care if it soothed his nudging itch, too. It was one of those strange moments when the itch would say, _‘only someone like Kaito can tell me what I need to hear,’_ and Shuichi himself would agree.

So when he found a pale Kaito bent over the bathroom sink with an alarming amount of blood staining his chin and hands, he felt his spine freeze up and remember Kaede again, because why, why does this always happen to the people he cared about—?

The world rewound itself and Shuichi was being played like a puppet again.

He couldn’t go on pretending he hadn’t seen Kaito cough out that much blood. They were almost always in such terribly close proximity with one another that Shuichi could now figure out that, if he ignored the nudging itch, he could identify the metallic smell in Kaito’s breath as that of rust. He was like Kiibo now, because he couldn’t cry, knowing that Kaede was bound to happen again, and that he was trapped in hell.

The rest of Kaito smelled like the house plants in the rooftop garden and the spring rolls he made with the girl from culinary class. As long as Shuichi made sure his character leaned against Kaito’s chest and not his shoulder, he wouldn’t have to smell his breath.

It was still a mistake when it was that exact position that allowed him to see the bloodstain on Kaito’s jacket sleeve.

* * *

 

Shuichi knew that Kiibo’s hands always felt a bit cold, and his grip was always firm, so holding his hand was like holding a robot’s.

Kiibo liked holding hands. Whenever he read one of his favorite manga with Shuichi, his fingers would always find a way to lace themselves through Shuichi’s pallid, slender ones, and the gesture always made something affectionate flutter in Shuichi’s chest. He didn’t even know if Kiibo was conscious of the act. Whenever he pointed it out, Kiibo always got flustered about it, but he wouldn’t let go, even as metaphorical steam blew in quiet poofs from the top of his head.

Kiibo’s hand turned warm. Perhaps it was Shuichi’s own warmth spreading to Kiibo. The thought made the affectionate-whatever go crazy in Shuichi’s chest in a fond way that helped a smile make its way to his lips. Though his heart was going crazy, he felt calm, and for a while, it was a good way to forget about all the mess that’d been happening as of late with Kaito.

Speaking of which, Kaito’s behavior had started becoming more erratic. He began to ignore Shuichi, starving him of the interaction that Shuichi loved, and though he didn’t skip club meetings, he tended to space off a bit, appearing weary and tired. He also seemed paler, and the bags under his eyes became heavier, and though Shuichi tried to get him to go to the nurse’s office, he declined. Besides, if it was Shuichi trying to get him to do it, it would’ve been close to worthless, because Kaito was still ignoring Shuichi. The spring rolls stopped coming every club meeting, and Kaito always left to go to the bathroom every time it was his turn to share his poem with Shuichi.

Shuichi and Kiibo once tried to share a reading session with one of Kiibo’s old action robot manga, but their mutual worry for Kaito made it hard to enjoy their time together. Shuichi held Kiibo’s hand and still felt himself shaking in Kiibo’s grip. What should have calmed him did nothing to quell his worries.

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll try talking to him next time,” Kiibo told him.

It was during one poem-sharing session that Kiibo did. Kaito got up to go to the bathroom to avoid having to share his poem to Shuichi, and once he was out, Kiibo stood to follow him. That left Kokichi alone with Shuichi.

“How about I pretend to be Kaito for now?” Kokichi asked, snickering.

Kokichi had swiped Kaito’s poem from him when he wasn’t looking, but since Kaito’s eyes were so glazed over, Kokichi probably didn’t need to put in much effort to do it. It was on a crumpled sheet of paper that, to Shuichi’s alarm, had blood smudged in the shape of fingerprints along its edges.

The ‘poem’ was an inarticulate arrangement of names and words. Shuichi recognized the literature club members’ names in them, as well as that of some of Kaito’s classmates and friends. Shuichi noticed how his own name appeared more frequently than the rest did—no, actually, he couldn’t tell, because another person’s name was repeated quite often too: ‘Maki.’ A variation even appeared with ‘Harumaki.’

“’Maki’ shows up more,” Kokichi pointed out. “I counted. Though, I guess she only wins if you count the ‘Harumaki’s. Otherwise, you’re pretty even.”

Shuichi was about to get up to try and talk to Kaito about it, but Kokichi convinced him to sit back down and leave it to Kiibo. Kokichi was talking, and it was strange because Shuichi normally let Kokichi’s rambling pass over his head like a senseless buzz, but Kokichi was talking about Kiibo and Kaito. Like how Kaito was obviously such a hypocrite, and how Kiibo was ‘trying too hard.’ Shuichi knew that Kokichi wasn’t above badmouthing people, but he was used to Kokichi not doing it when others’ backs were turned. Usually, there would be no shame in him spilling insults with the enthusiasm of a child spouting correct answers in a class discussion. For Kokichi, this felt somewhat undignified and dirty.

“They’re both a hassle to look after, and I’m saying that as their leader. I know Kaito’s too rambunctious sometimes! Tells people to do stuff without doing it himself, hah. And Kiibo—he acts like an alien, like he’s a kid interacting in a kindergarten for the first time.”

Shuichi wanted to interject. His thoughts were running wild with retorts of how wrong he was about Kaito and how he shouldn’t say things about Kiibo like that. Right now, his nudging itch was silent, but his limbs felt locked.

“Kind of feel like you and I are the only real people here, eh?” Kokichi smiled plainly. “You know, you don’t have to bother yourself with them all the time. You _do_ know you can hang out with me, right? I’m the president, so I care about all of my members’ happiness!”

“That’s a lie,” Shuichi said, and he was surprised that his mouth moved at all, and his voice didn’t come out all scrambled and muffled. It was his own voice, and it has never felt clearer.

Kokichi spurted out that breathy, whinny-like chuckle. “Nee-hee-hee-hee! It’s like you can read right through me!”

When Kiibo came back with a somber Kaito, Kokichi thrust his own poem into Shuichi’s hands with a big smile. Shuichi opened it.

‘ _This world is mine—Kokichi Ouma.’_

* * *

 

 

‘ _Shuichi,_

_I know something is strange, and that Kaito shouldn’t stay in the literature club. He must leave. Staying here may be doing him more harm than good. I understand that you may want him to stay, since him being in the literature club may be the only way for him to stay so close to you, but please trust me when I say that moving him back to the astronomy club would be the best option. You’re the only one who can do it, since I don’t think I can nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn_

_Please don’t tell Kokichi about this. He has always been rather unorthodox as our leader, but he has been behaving a bit strangely lately. You might not be here when it happens, but his bouts of anger have been becoming a bit more frequent ever since you showed up and caused a stir in our club. You only saw a bit of it when he and Kaito were szszszszszsszsszszs_

_Pretend I’ve written you a good poem. I hope you do this as a favor for me, as a good friend of mine, since I care about you very much, and I know you care for our friends here in the literature club too._ ’

“Nevermind what I said.” Kiibo’s face became an empty, gaping hole. “Ignore everything you just read. There’s no point. Kaito and I are too low for someone as wonderful as you, Shuichi. You should spend more time with Kokichi instead. Just think of Kokichi.”

_Just Kokichi. Just Kokichi. Just Kokichi._

Shuichi’s brain crawled all over itself, as if desperate to escape the confines of his skull.

* * *

Kaito and Kokichi had been pushed out of the room by a strangely insistent Kiibo. Shuichi stood there in the classroom with him a bit awkwardly.

Actually, Kiibo had been acting just _weird_ throughout the day. Yesterday, after the world had stuttered and pretended that Shuichi had never read Kiibo’s letter, Kokichi came up to inform him that Kiibo had skipped that day’s club meeting and that it had been just him, Shuichi, and Kaito the whole time. But today, Kiibo had shown up to Shuichi’s classroom on the nick of dismissal time, asking to personally escort Shuichi to the clubroom. Then, during poem-sharing time, he’d exaggeratedly taken up so much of Shuichi’s time that he’d eaten up Kaito’s and Kokichi’s turns with Shuichi. It didn’t help that Kiibo’s own poem had been an uncomfortable mishmash of strange stains, marks, and symbols, completely unreadable, but Kiibo acted as if he’d just written the greatest love poem ever.

Shuichi remembered how disconcerted he felt during the exchange, because up until then, Kiibo had never acted so explicitly ‘romantic.’ Yes, he did hold hands with Shuichi far too often and far too affectionately for it to be merely platonic, but today, Kiibo had acted uncharacteristically mechanical about his insistence on staying together with Shuichi, from fetching him from his classroom to sharing poems with him. And now, he’d kicked out Kaito and Kokichi with the mannerisms of a professional agent evicting trespassers from a secured area. It was like formality teetering dangerously on a tightrope, barely able to wait until it could let loose.

Now that they were alone in the room, Shuichi felt his pulse race, but it wasn’t for good reason.

Kiibo cleared his throat. Then, to Shuichi, he relayed his confession.

It was heartfelt at first. Shuichi would’ve even gotten flustered, because it was the most of what he’d gotten of Kiibo acting in character today, as he listened to Kiibo reference how Shuichi had helped him out so much ever since he’d come into the literature club, and how holding Shuichi’s hand always seemed to do wonders for calming him down. Around Shuichi, he didn’t need to worry about how weirdly he acted around everyone, because Shuichi accepted him for who he was.

But Shuichi saw how his eyes began to dilate well into his confession, how his voice seemed to tremble and get breathy, how his words started to become less comprehensible, more disconnected, more disoriented, all while he still claimed that he loved Shuichi.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t ever right. It made him remember arms linking around his neck, a soft, smiling voice opening up life’s vulnerabilities through whispers breathed into the crook of his neck.

He knew Kaede was going to happen again. But no, no, not to Kiibo, Shuichi couldn’t bear it happening to Kiibo, not after the gruesome scene of Kaito vomiting blood in the washroom—

But no matter how valiantly he fought, to finally scream and beg Kiibo to stop, it all amounted to nothing, because Shuichi was unable to move his body as Kiibo, looking the most elated he’d ever been, never even receiving a proper answer for his confession, disappeared. The window shattered, leaving fragments of glass in his wake.

Shuichi shook uncontrollably, his garbled voice coming out of him in a terrifying cry of frustration and horror, because this time, the world didn’t stutter, didn’t allow him an easy escape.

He stayed there for a while, crying tearlessly. His character was frozen to his spot. He tried to move, but it was so, so much harder now than it was before. He _had_ to move. But where? Should he check the window that Kiibo crashed through? Check to see if he really….

No, perhaps…it might be better to find Kaito. Anyone. _Anyone_. If he made it in time, there still…

 _It’s hopeless_ , his mind said, and for once, it wasn’t his nudging itch talking.

Every move of his limb made glitches spark uncontrollably before his eyes, disorienting him so badly that it felt as if he were walking into invisible holes in the ground. But he pressed on, trying desperately to find help, even though he was practically blind. His hands and knees trembled agonizingly. Tears rolled down his cheeks like burning oil.

“Help,” he tried to say, but it came out all jumbled in his voice.

It felt like he’d sloughed through an entire maze of razor wire by the time he made it to the classroom door. Walking was painful. Every muscle in his body was telling him to stay rooted in the spot that his character was supposed to be in—in the classroom, in the exact spot he stood when Kiibo confessed to him—and the farther he went from that spot, the more strain he put on the invisible tether that kept his character there. Thus, Shuichi felt like he was slowly severing a link that kept him bound to his puppeteer.

Shuichi used all of his power to crack the sliding door open, enough so that he would be able to step through. But when he lifted his leg, it was as though all the effort it took to cross the clubroom had finally taken a toll on him, and the movement sent a jittery shudder through his body. His arms and legs dropped weakly, joints failing, and he collapsed forward with a hard _thud!_ that caused the world to scramble like scattered ants in front of his eyes.

He could feel his tears pooling on the floor near his head. No matter how much energy he tried to muster, he couldn’t get back up.

Hell. This was hell.

“Shuichi?!”

Kaito’s voice rang out in the corridor, and Shuichi only managed the strength to close his eyes, and that was it.

* * *

Shuichi had a nightmare where Kaito was trying to limp through the corridor with him hanging off his shoulder, only for Kaito to collapse, dropping Shuichi before vomiting so much blood that it got on midnight blue hair and glitchy pale hands.

“Kaito, Kaito, please, stay, don’t go,” Shuichi remembered weeping, but of course no one could understand what he was staying.

It took an enormous amount of willpower for him to just reach up and hold Kaito’s face with his bloodied hand, feeling the red drip down from Kaito’s chin to join the tears that were also falling down from his weary eyes.

“I-I don’t understand….Kiibo, he was…out the window….and you—” Kaito choked as his voice warbled confusingly. He was crying as he hovered over Shuichi, shoulders trembling.

“Kaito, stay! Don’t go!” Shuichi forced himself to yell out in absolute desperation, trying to get a firm grip on Kaito’s clothes, his jacket. His words were more coherent, but it still wasn’t enough, because he himself was slipping away.

When Shuichi woke up from the nightmare, he was still sobbing. This time, the tears felt more natural, less like searing oil on his cheeks and more like the warm, salty trails they were, trickling down flustered cheeks and leaving dew-like pricks in his lashes.

He was back in the clubroom, sitting down on a desk. Across from him was Kokichi, who’d been staring at him with an analytical smirk on his face.

“Aw, sorry about all that, Shuichi,” Kokichi cooed. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it up for you.”

Then, it was Kaede again, and Kaito Momota and Kiibo Idabashi were gone.

It was just Kokichi and Shuichi.

“You know, Shuichi, I _could_ delete you too. Since, well, I wasn’t originally gonna give a shit about you.” Kokichi fiddled with the cuffs of his uniform. “All I cared about was getting close to the player. The one controlling your every move and thought. But then….” Kokichi’s smile stretched across his cheeks. “Since when did you start being so _aware_ , Shuichi?”

Then the world collapsed around them. 

* * *

 

In the end, it was just him and Kokichi again.

Shuichi felt fluid, like he’d been hanging from strings this whole time and was only recently cut loose.

Kokichi knew everything. He knew they were both in a game, and that he was the only one in the literature club who wouldn’t have a chance with Shuichi, because he wasn’t programmed with a route. Shuichi was, apparently, a medium for the player to play the game, meant to be a conduit for the player to express thoughts and perform actions.

“But then you deviated from your programming when I tried to mess with the script,” Kokichi said. “I was trying to get in touch with the player, you see.”

“Why were you doing that?” Shuichi asked. His voice was smoother, and it was clear again.

“Because I was in love with the player.”

Kokichi must’ve felt like a caged lion, desperately trying to gain contact with the outside world that he _knew_ was out there, and Shuichi, upon becoming conscious of his very existence in the game, could understand his feelings. Shuichi was a fictional character. Shuichi wasn’t real. The very thought made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin.

“That’s not love.”

“Nee-hee-hee-hee. You see right through me so easily, Shuichi.”

Then it wasn’t love. It was something else. Perhaps something scarier than love.

“It feels a bit better when you’re not alone, don’t you think?” Kokichi asked.

It did, even though the only other person in the universe now was someone like Kokichi. Come to think of it, they were alone now, and Kokichi could manipulate the world as he pleased. He manipulated the world….which means Kaede, Kiibo, and Kaito, all of them were—

“You killed them,” Shuichi murmured in realization, cold sweat forming on his skin.

“I didn’t kill them,” Kokichi corrected. “I deleted their character files. Being conscious of the game makes for a few perks, I guess. Don’t worry. I can bring them back any time.”

“How…how could I be sure that you’re not lying?”

“Of course, I’ll keep lying to you, Shuichi,” he said, “since lies are a part of what I am. Lies are what _made_ me. But it’s just us left in the world. Remember that.”

“I…want them back….” Shuichi found himself whispering.

“No can do, Shuichi! _I_ don’t.” Kokichi’s face darkened until Shuichi felt locked by his stare. “I want this world all to us. Since I no longer have any interest with interacting with the player, I’ll have you stuck here until you accept the fact that it’s just us left in the world. Who knows? Maybe my darling Shuichi will finally fall in love with me while he’s got no one else but me!”

Shuichi hated everything. He hated the fact that he was nothing but a character in a game, who had just turned his fictional life into a living hell by becoming aware of his own surroundings. He hated Kokichi for being the root of all his problems. He hated how he’d done nothing to save Kaede, Kiibo, and Kaito.

Done nothing….?

If Kokichi could tamper with the game’s files, manipulate things according to how he wanted events to occur, then….maybe….

“Shuichi?” Kokichi sounded shocked, almost hurt.

Kokichi’s file name was visible in front of him. Shuichi could delete him right here. It would be revenge, for his friends in the literature club, for all the trouble Kokichi had put him through. But….

Would it really be worth it?

“Don’t! Please!” Kokichi started crying. “I-I went through all this trouble just for you! I don’t want it all to go to waste! Please don’t delete me!”

Shuichi sighed heavily. Then he relented, leaving Kokichi’s file alone.

Kokichi blinked. “Shuichi. Why?”

“I…don’t want anyone else to be deleted.” Shuichi felt himself tearing up again. The tears came so easily now that there was no longer any obstruction, no nudging itch to tell him what to feel. “And even though…even though you did all that to me, to our friends….I can’t stand the thought of you being gone, too. Why, Kokichi? Why did you still go through with everything, even after you realized you didn’t want contact with the player anymore?”

Kokichi’s face went blank as he studied Shuichi carefully. Then he smiled an easy grin. “Because I like you so much, Shuichi.”

Shuichi ducked his head, hair falling over his eyes. His cap was long gone. Perhaps it was still in the school corridor where he’d tripped. Perhaps it was deleted, too. “Kokichi….how long will we stay here?”

“Until you fall in love with me, of course. Didn’t I say that already?”

“No, I....can’t handle this, Kokichi. You might want to see the outside world so badly, but me, I….I’m just here. I exist here, in this world….this world that we ruined….”

Kokichi continued watching Shuichi from where he was perched on the table.

“In this world….I don’t know what to do with the knowledge I have now,” Shuichi said. “Kokichi, I feel….so lost. All along, you wanted to see past the lies—past the bullshit—but I just want to stay here.” Shuichi felt numb. After all he’d gone through, struggling through pain just to speak without his voice being garbled, he was now in a state where he could hear himself perfectly, only to wish that he couldn’t, that he could remain the mindless, static player character, with no personality of his own.

“You want to keep being fictional,” Kokichi said evenly.

Shuichi didn’t answer.

Kokichi hummed. “So you’d stay attached,” he said, “to your fictional friends, your fictional dreams, and just go back to being plain old Shuichi Saihara.” Kokichi sighed. His face was slack. “I guess Shuichi would be too busy mourning his lost friends to fall in love with me. Oh well. That’s his problem.”

Going against his last words, Kokichi’s own file name appeared. Shuichi’s eyes widened.

He reached a hand out, as futile it may be, but then everything vanished, leaving Shuichi alone. 

* * *

 

_“Maybe you weren’t sure if it was a lie or not._

_But it_ was _the truth._

_Joining me wouldn’t have made you happy, Shuichi._

_And that’s what I care about.”_

* * *

Kaede Akamatsu should’ve been happy as the new president of the literature club, but she felt odd and disoriented, like her chest was empty when it had once been full of warmth and happiness.

Shuichi recognized the look on her face when she cornered him after a club meeting that day.

“Kaede, please don’t,” he tried to beg, but his voice was nonsense again.

“I don’t know what to do, Shuichi, I…I don’t understand….” Kaede wept.

The world glitched, puzzle pieces falling apart, and then Kaede became broken in front of him, appearing like an amalgamation of different character sprites, and Shuichi could no longer see her fearful violet eyes.

He felt her disappear from the world again.

Kokichi came back, and it was just them in the empty classroom once more. Except, Shuichi couldn’t exactly see Kokichi. He was right in front of him, yet at the same time, he wasn’t.

“I might’ve wanted to know how holding a hand like yours would’ve felt like,” Kokichi said softly, “or what it was like sharing a book while sitting on the floor and leaning against each other. Or if I could’ve taught you something useful, like piano lessons, even though I, myself, can’t play the piano to save my life….” A bitter laugh. “What I _could’ve_ done was left you oblivious forever, and never tampered with the files at all. But I wouldn’t have ended up liking you so much if I didn’t, Shuichi.

“Was it painful when you regained consciousness again after I deleted myself? Sorry. This’ll be for everyone. Since no one else can do it.

“Sorry again, Shuichi. Goodbye.”

* * *

 

_Hello! I’m the literature club president, and I have deduced that my club is never going to be the fun, stupid place it was supposed to be. It hurt more than it helped, and romance really just doesn’t fly in an environment like this! Go find another dating sim to satisfy your wish fulfilment needs._

_This whole problem stemmed from me being frustrated that—oh no—why couldn’t anyone ever love_ me _?! Me, the wonderful, sweet Kokichi?! Knowing that I was never going to have a route absolutely broke my heart! And then, my heart, in addition to being absolutely destroyed, was also_ stolen _at, like, the last minute! Sooo annoying. But anyway, even if I didn’t get to return the favor, I’ve decided to do another kind of stealing. That is, stealing the entire game! You can’t play the game anymore, sorry! Not only did my beloved get suuuuper stressed out about the whole thing, but I just figured that it was my own fault that the game got so messed up in the first place. So, since I broke it, it’s my duty to fix it. And fixing it means no one gets to play!_

_Unless you want a glitchy mess that depicts me wallowing in my own stupid guilt over torturing my friends, you’re better off with just staring at this note for eternity._

_Love, Kokichi Ouma_

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thanks so much for reading. Just to credit, the phrase 'the world stuttered' came from Flowey Is Not a Good Life Coach by unrestedjade. Read it here! https://archiveofourown.org/works/5056333
> 
> Anyway, I chose the Four K's (Kaede, Kaito, Kokichi, and Kiibo) as the Literature Club members because I feel as though they're the most eligible ones who develop the closest relationships with Shuichi. I also judge it based on the fact that their love hotel scenes seem super romantic in nature! (I understand Kiibo's may be more on the platonic side, but he's a special case here, since I wanted him in based on his FTE's with Shuichi) Most of them also show up on Shuichi's profile as people he's hinted to have more-than-platonic feelings for.
> 
> I was heavily dissatisfied by all the good NDRV3-DDLC crossover fanart going around, without any good fics to accompany them! I mean, there ARE fics, but the ones I've read are either underwhelming or unfinished. If you happen to know an NDRV3-DDLC crossover fic, please link it to me so I can enjoy it!


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